Annual report 2015

The FPC’s Annual Report 2015 has been published earlier today; see below. I could not spot anything out of the ordinary at first glance, in addition to the sneak preview.

International litigants will appreciate that the FPC strives to further improve the overall setup for simultaneous tranlation at hearings:

A currently unresolved issue is the lack of interpreter booths at the Federal Administrative Court. As a result, temporary ad hoc solutions need to be found each time interpreters are needed to facilitate communication between international litigants. This happens more regularly at the Federal Patent Court than at the Federal Administrative Court. The two institutions are currently working on ways to address this issue.

Reported by Martin WILMING

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3 Replies to “Annual report 2015”

  1. Hi Martin,
    I just found this site. Most interesting, thank you for curating this information for us.
    I am a simultaneous interpreter for the EPO (among others). The mention of interpreters and booths for the FPC here was quite a while ago. Has the situation changed?

    1. Hi Julia
      Thanks for letting me know that you like the Blog. Much appreciated!
      No, not much has changed since then. Except for the booth which has not been used in more recent times anymore. The interpreters are just sitting in the same room, whispering the interpretation into the mike. I wonder if that is maybe even more exhausting for interpreters when they know they shouldn‘t speak too loud?
      Best regards,
      Martin

      1. Hi Martin,
        I have just come back to the site for the first time – I haven’t received a notification that there was a reply to my comment – sorry!
        You are absolutely right. Whispering interpretation in a courtroom can be extremely exhausting and the most difficult thing is that, very often, without amplification, the spoken word that we hear is not loud enough so that there is a danger of missing something while we are speaking. Booths with professional sound equipment operated by a technician are the qualified working environment for us and for the users of our services. Any idea why the proper equipment is not used? Is there a difference whether the interpreting is acutally for a witness, i.e. relevant to the proceedings, vs. only for people who listen?

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